The Influence of Water Content on Rock Crushing Performance

Abstract:
      This work presents laboratory and full-scale studies to examine the effect of water content on rock crushing processes. The objective of the study is to reduce generation of small particles (0-8 mm, called fines) due to failure of rock. In the laboratory, dry and saturated specimens of gneiss and amphibolite were tested. In the full-scale study dry and wet rock blocks of gneiss were crushed in a mobile crushing plant. In this case, wet material was led to the crusher and a certain amount of water was sprayed into crusher during its operation.
   The results showed that production of fines could be reduced by about% 50 for gneiss specimens and by about%20 for amphibolite in the laboratory. Hence, under special conditions of the full-scale study the reduction was not clear; adding small amount of water into the crusher increased the amount of fines generated, while adding more water (2.5 l/s) reversed the trend and reduced the fines fraction produced.